Many believe that today, film or analog cameras is no longer relevant. “Who uses film camera in this day and age anyway?” you might ask. Well, there are many established photographers still use analog cameras for a variety of reasons. There’s also the LoMo movement that uses analog instead of digital cameras but that’s a topic for another day. Today in my street photography tips I would like to discuss lessons from analog cameras that can be beneficial for the digital camera photographers.

1. Don’t chimp

Chimping is a term made for the digital photography age. It means looking at your LCD screen after almost every shots. I believe chimping has more disadvantages than advantages. I have explored this on my website. In essence, it disrupt your flow and you might even delete good photos accidentally if you chimp and try to edit every shots.

On an analog camera, you obviously can’t chimp your shots. You just have to trust your ability and continue taking photos. Give it a try and for me personally it’s liberating, to continue shooting without worrying why my shots look a certain way. I normally only look at my shots when I’m done, whether the next week or the next month.

2. Pause and check your setting before starting

Another habit to pick up from shooting film that still apply to digital photography is to check your setting before shooting a series in the same lighting environment. Sure you can edit or delete photos easier on digital now, but imagine getting that “great moment” shot then realized you have a bad setting only afterward. That moment would not repeat itself exactly. It’s lost in time. So whether you're shooting film or digital, pause a few seconds before shooting a series of photo and check your settings. If the light changes, glance again at your settings and change them if necessary.

3. Learn to see the shot in your mind

Many digital photographers, me included, sometimes don’t see the shot before hand. Due to the ease of chimping your shot right after pressing the shutter, we got lazy and rely on what is shown on the LCD to “see” the shot. It is more beneficial to “see” the shot before hand, frame and compose it in your mind then look for it. It’ll help you to find and identify the best composition and lighting.

4. Don’t shoot everything

Films in analog camera are limited as compare to memory cards. You can shoot almost a thousand photos on a 32 MB memory card but film roll typically limited to 36 exposures. As it cost money to process, film camera photographers are more selective in what they shoot. How does this translate to digital? Don’t shoot everything that you come across, instead be selective and give a thought and see the shot in your mind before pressing the shutter. It’ll make you more aware of your surrounding and more critical on what constitute a good photo.

5. Patient

Film camera teaches you to be patient. On film camera you won’t know how your shots look like until it came back from the lab, which could be next week or if you’re in a remote location, next month.

Chimping your LCD can lead you to edit your shot on the fly while out shooting. In my opinion this is bad. When you are out shooting, every time you press that shutter, there’s an emotion that you attach to the shot. By looking at the shot immediately you won’t be subjective and clouded by your emotions and thoughts at that particular moment. Therefore, sometimes what you think is a bad photo is actually very good and vice versa. Be patient, see and edit your photos after you get back. Better yet after a day or a week so you can be more subjective on which shots are good and which are bad.

I hope this article is beneficial to the digital photographers out there. Keep on shooting and capturing that slice of time in your life. For more on street photography on a budget, head on over to Street Photography Sans Leica.